Because I may be a freak, but I don’t think it is.
Granted, the band members do have the collective IQ of a bag of hair, but Reiner’s character was not supposed to be a brilliant filmmaker either. I always took that scene as the docu guy simply not understanding, because he had a completely literal turn of mind (which is not a good thing in a director).
The way I see it, if the highest setting is louder than normal, then it’s not a traditional 10. If it’s enough louder to be noteworthy, then it should be 11. It’s not like measuring in decibels, which our receiver does. 1-10 calibration is merely a scale; I think I’ve seen volume controls that were calibrated in multiples of 5. So what’s dumb about a 1-11 scale, if it has more range than a 1-10?
I think the idea was that the volume control doesn’t have more range than normal, that the guy just thought it did because ‘these go to 11’, and since it had an extra number it just had to be louder, even though it wasn’t.
1 to 10 is arbitrary. You could find an amp with no settings at all that was the loudest amp in the world, and you could find one with 800 settings, with not a one particularly impressive.
Without linking it in to decibels, whether the knob goes to 10 or 11 is entirely irrelevant to the loudness.
Reminds me of Arnold Schwarzeneggar’s “seven-shot six-shooters” from “The Villain”:
Handsome Stranger: This is a seven-shot six-shooter, and I had it especially made.
Charming Jones: Why?
Handsome Stranger: Why?
Charming Jones: Yeah.
Handsome Stranger: I dunno. No one ever asked me that before…
Well, I’ll be dipped, Nancarrow: there’s no indication that they’re any louder, just that the knobs are different. Phooey. Still, though, if they were louder, then I’d be on board with an 11 setting.
Right, that’s my point, Sage Rat. 11 doesn’t mean it is louder, as I now realize. But if the amp itself has a greater range than most, there’s nothing that says the highest setting can’t be 11. Or 800, but 11 is more subtle. But I have to shamefacedly admit that DeBergi is right in this instance: make it louder first, then decide what to call it.
Of course, but dividing settings just means that you have more settings. Whether there’s ten or eleven just means that you’ve split the gradients into smaller segments. Technically speaking, the best amp in terms of settings would just have min and max, and an infinite gradient between.
As a guitarist, this is just a classic guitar joke. “Nigel Tufnel” has NO CLUE about how amps actually work - he just thinks that being able to dial up one more sounds like a freakin’ cool thing to do. The fact that all he is actually doing is maxing the amp and the little freakin’ plastic knob has one more number on it is completely lost on Nigel, even when Marti tries to 'splain that to him.
This is a classic guitarist stereotype - the rock player who perhaps can play, but is absolutely clueless about the tech underpinnings of the gear he uses. There is a legend - documented in the Complete Abbey Road Recordings by Lewisohn - where the studio guys told Lennon that they would “flange” his vocal tracks later to deliver what he wanted. They made the phrase up - but he bought it - and it became associated with a “real” effect that is commonly used to this day…
To answer the OP, Tufnel assumed that any eleven is automatically louder than any ten (by the same logic, he would believe that eleven feet is longer than ten miles). DiBergi understood there’s a difference between having more numbers and having more volume. So DiBergi was the one who knew what he was talking about in that scene.